Over the Moon

Ingrid Bacsa-Mott

Carlo and Stephan had boarded together for two years in the Derbyshire village of Buxton. They had known one another since they were children and Stephan was always the one that stood out.  Carlo was small and shy and depended on Stefan to support him as a “big brother” at school. They were very different in character, and while Carlo was a serious student, Stefan would always be more popular. Both lads passed their exams with flying colours, but Stefan was always a favourite with their peers, tutors and the opposite sex.  Nevertheless, the two always remained best friends throughout the years. 

Both of these two young Astronomy students were fascinated by UFO’s and often camped out in the nearby Peak District which offered wide remote spaces where they could venture out and explore the broad expanse of skies at various times of the day and night, often recording unidentified objects and movements across the sky.

 On this beautiful autumnal morning they decided to walk along the Lakeside path at Blake Mere to watch the early sunrise and capture its colourful reflections in the lake while they could.   It was early October and the weather would be changing soon to restrict such opportunities.

 It was a half hour walk along the length of the lake on the upper west side and every minute of this walking was blessed with the sun’s orange glow reflecting across the surface of the water  as it slowly rose up from the eastern side of the lake.  Carlo had brought his video camera so they were able to record this spectacular sunrise as they strolled along the western edges of the banks.  They put up their tent and ground sheets half way along the westerly shore and proceeded to then set up the camera and video recording equipment pointing the lens towards the pink cloud dappled skies immediately surrounding the huge ascending sun.

Carlo was in awe of Stephan, as he had invented a digital telescope, which, although slim and lightweight, was twenty times more powerful than any other telescope before. This invention was not shared with anyone except Carlo as yet and they had planned on trying it out on the night sky that evening, when a full harvest moon was expected.   Carlo greatly admired Stephan and knew he could learn so much from him. Secretly, though, he was just a bit envious of his friend.

The two of them relaxed for much of the day, reading and photographing the wildlife around them, frogs, voles and water fowl of various species. In the afternoon, after having cheese and ham sandwiches, they studied and did their homework together. They joked and teased one another about the females they were grouped with at the University. Stephan always attracted the prettier girls.

From 6:30 p.m. onwards, a dramatic sunset was in full flush to the west, so Carlo proceeded to relocate to the opposite side of the lake to harness the full display.   At the same time, the harvest moon was soon visible to the east. It was a full golden moon and Stephan already had his newly designed telescope set up and fully focussed on this, from the opposite side of the lake.  

As Stephan stared into his powerful telescope lens, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Instead of the usual outline of the man in the moon, he saw, quite un-mistakenly, – a young woman standing up there. She was waving frantically, her arms apparently motioning for him to move away. Stephan was spellbound by the mysterious beauty that he saw. He couldn’t move, his eyes were fixed on this alluring creature. As he adjusted his telescope to maximize the lens, Steph noticed that she appeared to be sobbing and desperate. Shooing him away! He was bewildered – what was this about?  Suddenly, a beam shot out from the moon – Stephan did not see this, as it was still daylight.  The moonbeam’s light pierced him through the heart. He was speedily hauled upwards … up, up, up; the beam shot forward at the speed of light, propelling Stephan all the way up to the moon itself in a matter of minutes. 

Carlo had been standing still on the opposite side of the lake as he recorded the sunset, and he had witnessed the whole thing. Desperately, he rushed over to where Stephan had been.  He peered through his friend’s telescope, which was focussed directly on the moon.  He saw clearly that Stephan had been left, unharmed and in situ, standing immediately next to the beautiful woman on the moon. She was crying incessantly. Carlo saw Stephan holding her close to him to comfort her.  He could not hear her, but she was sobbing to him:

 “I wanted you to escape. I was caught by a moonbeam in the same way a month ago!  We can’t get back!”

Carlo was at first astonished. He wanted to do the right thing and contact the emergency services to report the plight of his friend. He peered through the telescope again. Then, he remembered hearing that the old man in the moon had finally passed away, leaving the moon desperate for a replacement human image or two on its earth-facing surface. “If this is true”, he thought, “then, if Steph is removed from the moon, nobody would be safe from shooting moonbeams in the night”.  

Not wishing to risk a treck across the wild plain into the village as the dark of the night approached, Carlo thought to himself, “Stephan and the mysterious woman can stand there and stare and watch the earth, in hope, holding on to one-another, in the silvery cold atmosphere of the moon’s surface, until the morning. Then I will decide what to do”.   

Carlo was sleepy, he stretched out in his sleeping bag, gazing at the last glowing streams of the spectacular sunset disappearing into the lake.  As it did, he turned his head slightly, to see the full moon and its golden reflection in the water to the east side, glowing brightly in the new darkness. Carlo then curled himself up snuggly into a ball, watching the low distant moon slowly moving across the sky, from his pillow.  Then, he dreamed, dreamed that he would get full credit for inventing the telescope, and that the girls in the group would be swarming around him; a huge smile grew across his face; tomorrow, he would be over the moon!

By: ingrid Bacsa-Mott

      November 2020

      1040 words